And the 2nd runner up for a free e-book copy of Broken Promises is Granny Annie from Fools Rush In.

I will be contacting the winners over the long Christmas weekend and I want to thank everyone for stopping by to play.

As for me, I will be taking a short break from posting, partially because of Christmas, but mostly because we are now entering the flex part of my work schedule, where for the next 7 days, starting on the day after Christmas (not including Sunday), I will be working at least 52 hours. So to all my friends, readers and fellow bloggers, I wish you a very Merry Christmas. Catch you on the flip side of 2015.

December 22, 2014

First up, I want to let everyone know that I will be picking the winners of my half-month long contest on Christmas Eve, so if you still want in, just let me know in the comments. Clicking on this link will give you all the details you need.

Did you ever notice that even though you might go above and beyond what you normally do for your job, you still get treated like shit by the very people that you go that extra mile for? Well, I have, and frankly, it's getting very tiresome. The amount of schtuff that I do during my work day is quite a lot and the blowback that I'm getting from those staff members who have an over-inflated importance of self is getting seriously annoying.

From 2006 thru the 3Q of this year, it has been my personal rule of thumb to treat everyone like adults and sometimes go above and beyond what I usually do in order to make my job not only easier but enjoyable as well. However, the amount of blowback I've been getting has gotten stupider and nastier, and quite frankly, I'm getting quite fed up with it.

If I send you an e-mail giving you at least a week's notice that I will not be somewhere due to prior commitments and that you'll have to do something just a little different, don't spend three hours creating Mt. Everest out of an anthill. Just do what I want when I want so that I can get my job done in a timely manner.

If I tell you over the phone that I work on particular something once a month because we are short staffed and I have to PRIORITIZE my duties, don't give me athlete's scalp by going over my head to someone who is not my supervisor to bitch about it. Nobody likes or respects a bitchy co-worker. Nobody.

If send you multiple e-mails asking for an item so that I can do my job by making sure that someone gets a paycheck, don't tell me, "Okay, I'll get it to you." and then not get it to me. Believe me, I understand what you go through on a daily basis, so I make sure to bother you only when absolutely necessary.

If you ask me to do something for you because 1) you really need it and 2), no one hasn't gotten back to you in order to fix your problem to begin with so that you can do it yourself, then tattoo it inside your brain that I'm not going to do it again for you. "One and done" is the working phrase of the day here. I'm not your personal secretary, so learn to get it for yourself. If I can get the same thing for myself, there should be no reason why you can't get it for yourself as well.

What this really boils down to is that I'm not going to put up with blowback from anyone anymore. I have a semi-photographic memory, and if you couple that with a mania for having a paper trail, I can almost guarantee that I will not tolerate being lied to, lied about, having words shoved into my mouth or get thrown under the road paver.

2015 is a brand new year, and remember, I can play the same kind of bullshit games as you, only I can do it better and with consequences that affect 100% you and maybe 5% me.

December 19, 2014

By basic definition, radio silence is a military term signifying that no radio communication of any kind is to be had between a given unit (or ship or plane, etc.) and its base. Sometimes a tragic result can happen as a result of radio silence. In the non-military sense of the phrase, radio silence often means that a particular someone decided to either voluntarily or involuntarily cut off contact with the either the outside world or the cyber world.

In my particular case, I involuntarily cut off contact with the cyber world.

This week has been particularly brutal as the flex part of my work schedule (getting home after 6:30p) had absolutely crushed any desire to be even remotely social, and in fact, turned me into someone who was anti-social with both the outside world and the cyber world. How anti-social was I this week? Facebook was kind enough to send me an e-mail yesterday (12/18) that politely informed me just exactly what it was that I had missed for the week. The only meaningful conversation that I had took place with my cat.

I am finishing up this very brutal week and at exactly 4:46p, I will be partaking in an extended four day weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday), which will entail of me doing my Christmas shopping, recharging my batteries, catching up with my blog reading and most importantly, picking a few winners from my contest of a week and a half ago. Believe it or not, there is still time to enter. If you haven't enter yet, just mention in the comments that you want in, and presto! you is in!

In the meantime, I leave you with this wicked cool song from Tonic to start your weekend.

December 14, 2014

At my job, I generate a world of complaints from all sorts of people. Unlike in the private sector, where if you buy a defective product you wind up have conversations like this:

Which basically means that you argue until you're blue in the face and then maybe, just maybe, you'll get a small sliver of satisfaction.

In the public sector (aka, working for a municipality, state or federal guv'ment agency, or any other type of guv'mental agency for all of my non-U.S. readers), you can basically bitch, moan, groan and creatively stretch the truth to suit your own needs, and pretty much someone will pay attention to you just to get rid of your whiny ass, because after all, a whiny public sector worker is a lazy public sector worker.

Anywho, in the past 8 1/2 years that I've been encamped at my current place of employment, I have generated enough complaints in regards to my assigned duties that a variation of the following conversation between myself and my supervisor has become the longest running joke in my unit.

So.....about the only thing of real note I can post talk about is that The Free Schwag Giveaway is in full force! Click on this link for more details, and I have just one more thing: Sometimes being pulled kicking and screaming into the 21st century can be a major female of the canine species, especially if having this is the main reason why you're kicking and screaming.

In the meantime, here is THE SONG that everyone and the bff tries to sing for those local pseudo America's Got Talent shows.

December 8, 2014

That's right ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls above the age of 18, my pride and joy has come full circle. Previously known under the title Line 21 (copies of which are still available for purchase), and now known as The Inner Sibling, is now available for purchase on both Amazon and CreateSpace (soon to be available for purchase at Books By G.B. Miller Spring 2015).

My friends, bringing this book back from the great beyond was both a source of pride and perseverance. Pride in that once again, I can show to the world that I have conquered the second level of my writing journey (getting a book published by a traditional publisher), and perseverance in that getting the final version of my re-release out allows me to work on the two novellas that have been waiting very patiently (like at least 2 years) for me to publish them.

In celebration of completing the final step in the journey of my commercial debut, I am running a contest for some free schwag this week. All you have to do to enter is to either comment on this post or share it with others on Google+, on Facebook or even on your own blog and let me know that you have done so as well.

Grand prize is the proof copy of The Inner Sibling, autographed by yours truly.
1st runner up is the e-book version of the same (available at Smashwords).
2nd runner up is a copy of my short story trilogy Broken Promises.

December 5, 2014

Time now, for the redundant portion of Father Nature's Corner, where we produce another post in the occasional series entitled "Cedar's Mountain's Classics", in which we take an old post from the original six year odyssey that was my first blog and retool, revamp, regurgitate, reactivate and simply reanimate to something very new and very shallow.

Today's post repeater is a spoof/rant/re-tool on taking a vacation, either from the cyber world or the real world. Feel free to read the post, although it isn't anything to speak of, other than most of the commenters have long since stopped commenting and/or visiting my blog, and two of them have all but abandoned the blog world for greener pastures (one is a very successful NY Times bestselling indie writer).

Back in the halcyon days of Cedar's Mountain, I used to go on hiatus about two to three times a year, mostly around the major holidays. After all, doing semi-fun things/recharging the batteries at the time was slightly better than hanging around cyber space. But...as the years slowly trudged by, I found that going on hiatus, much like going on vacation from work, was really boring.

I know, hard to believe that taking time off from blogging/writing/real world could be called boring, but that is how I actually feel about the subject of vacation. I don't take a lot of vacations from work, other than taking what I call "vacation cap days", in which I use just enough vacation time in order to receive the vacation accrual that I'd busted my chops for in the previous month. I don't like giving back stuff that is rightfully mine to begin with.

So...while taking a vacation can be exciting for most, I find it to be excruciatingly dull. Which is why when I take vacation days I bitch, moan, groan and whine about what a crappy time I'm having.

December 3, 2014

Welcome my friends to the blog that never ends, I am your most excellent host, G.B. Miller!

Not only is today December 3rd, but it's the first Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means? It means it's IWSG time!

The first Wednesday of the month is set aside for insecure writers across the blog-o-sphere to share all of our individual experiences, the gud, the baaaaaad and the plug ugly. You can either click on the link at the picture, or on the IWSG page located at the top of this blog.

Today's topic is one that is not only near and dear to my heart, but most definitely near and dear to yours. It's a topic that we deal with every single day of our lives not only as writers, but as regular yobs as well.

Time.

Unlike the wonderful Pink Floyd song from their long running Billboard 200 album (something like 30+ years) where the person has gobs of time, I have an excruciating lack of time to do almost anything, and I mean almost anything, writing related. While that may sound odd, considering that you're reading a blog post about lack of time, blogging is basically the only thing I can do that requires a maximum of ten minutes out of my wickedly cluttered day.

I say "cluttered" because about a month ago I started a new flex style schedule that requires me to work 48 hours every other week, and if you couple that with the fact that semi-mandatory overtime is required (short staffed) every other Saturday, you can understand why excess time is a commodity that I simply do not possess.

And for me to be able to do any kind of decent writing, I need a modest block of about two hours that I simply cannot find. Which means on average, any writing that I choose to do, only lasts about five to ten minutes tops, which is just enough time to open a document and tighten/tweak the grammar/sentences/paragraphs before having to close it.

One final example about the lack of time: in my last IWSG post, I said I would have something good to share with everyone. Well, due to the lack of time, I was not able to complete the task required in order to share that good news with everyone.

Time: if you got it, flaunt it to the best of your abilities. If you don't, then you need to practice time management skills in order to get it.

December 1, 2014

By now, most of you have had your blog's comment section butchered by Boycott Guy (for lack of a better name) with his rants about American women. And I'm sure that none of you sensible people have even remotely thought about scoping out his website. Well my friends, have no fear, G.B. has decided to do what all you sensible people have chosen not to do: He scoped out that website.

I popped in the URL and IE11 immediately took me to Yahoo search (if put in a URL that doesn't exist or if I misspell a URL, it automatically redirects me to Yahoo.), which brought up an entire page of cached pages for that website. It even gave me a cached copy of his dearly departed Blogger Blog, as well as a cached copy of a WordPress blog that he had set up as well.

To save you the time and trouble, just because I'm that type of guy, here is a brief summarization of his blog.

This blog was alive from 2010 thru the summer of 2012; it has actually been shared on Google+ 19 times; the comment he leaves is verbatim from his blog description; his "posts" are quite articulate, much like the talking heads that bloviate on underground radio (and you know what kind of talking heads I'm implying here); and he managed to write roughly just under 300 posts before he was shut down.

I will give this person credit, no matter what the topic of the blog is, he has hit it. I scrolled through several pages and this guy has hit blogs ranging from agricultural to feminists to mommy blogs to historical society blogs and everything in between (and I mean everywhere in between. Bodybuilding? Family History? Nigeria?).

So while he is a certified nut, he seems to be a harmless nut. Just the same, stay vigilant and keep that unwholesome spam out of your blog and on your plate, where it belongs.

In summary, when you are bored, you can truly do pointless things to keep yourself amused. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to find out why my local useless newspaper dropped Beetle Bailey.